Why is it "J'aimerais soit de l'argent soit un cadeau?" I thought with aimer you didn't use the partitive.

Ann

Why is it "J'aimerais soit de l'argent soit un cadeau?" I thought with aimer you didn't use the partitive.

Ann

Kwiziq community member

22 October 2018

22/10/18

And then it is "C'est soit les vacances soit le travail." How to know when to use partitive and when to use just the article?

Aurélie

Kwiziq language super star

22 October 2018

22/10/18

Bonjour Ann !

Here it depends of what you're trying to say.

When you say J'aime l'argent, it means I love money, speaking about money in general, hence the definite article.

But when you say J'aimerais de l'argent, it means I'd like [some] money, and you're referring to a (vague) quantity of money, which is a bit more specific.

If you said J'aime de l'argent, it'd mean I love some money, which sounds weird, as it restricts your liking to a portion of the thing. Usually, when you express a liking, it's not partial, hence the use of definite articles most of the time with aimer. But with aimer in Le Conditionnel, it's more something you would like to have or do, hence the possibility of introducing quantifiers.

I hope that's helpful!Bonne journée !

Ann

Kwiziq community member

23 October 2018

23/10/18

Thanks, so in "C'est soit les vacances, soit le travaille", those are general? When I searched some of the translation sites on line, one showed the partitive here, so it's very confusing.